“I feel as though I had known you for years,” she said, frankly returning his gaze.  She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands.  “I’m merely Edith’s sister.  We live in Paris,—­that is, father and I. I’m three years younger than Edith.  Of course, you know how old your wife is, so we won’t dwell upon that.  You don’t?  Then I’d demand it of her.  I haven’t been in Philadelphia since I was seven—­and that’s ages ago.  I have no mother, and father is off in South America on business.  So, you see, little sister has to tag after big sister.  Oh!” She interrupted the recital with an abrupt change of manner.  “I’m so sorry you’ve finished your coffee.  Now you’ll have to go.  Roxbury always does.”

“But I haven’t finished,” he exclaimed eagerly.  “I’m going to have three or four more pots.  You have no idea how—­”

“It’s all right then,” she said with her rarest and most confident smile.  “Well, Edith asked me to come to London for the season.  The Rodneys were in Paris at the time, however, and they had asked me to join them for a fortnight in the Tyrol.  When I said that I was off for a visit with the—­with you, I mean—­they insisted that you all should come too.  They are connections, in a way, don’t you see.  So we accepted.  And here we are.”

“You don’t, by any chance, happen to be engaged to be married, or anything of that sort,” he ventured.  “Don’t crush me!  It’s only as a safeguard, you know.  People may ask questions.”

“You are not obliged to answer them, Roxbury,” she said.  The flush had deepened in her cheek.  It convinced him that she was in love—­and engaged.  He experienced a queer sinking of the heart.  “You can say that you don’t know, if anyone should be so rude as to ask.”  Suddenly she caught her breath and stared at him in a sort of panic.  “Heavens,” she whispered, the toast poised half-way to her lips, “you’re not, by any chance, engaged, are you?  Appalling thought!”

He laughed delightedly.  “People won’t ask about me, my dear Constance.  I’m already married, you know.  But if anyone should ask, you’re not obliged to answer.”

She looked troubled and uncertain.  “You may be really married, after all,” she speculated.  “Who knows?  Poor old Roxbury wouldn’t have had the tact to inquire.”

“I am a henpecked bachelor, believe me.”

For the next quarter of an hour they chatted in the liveliest, most inconsequential fashion, getting on excellent terms with each other and arriving at a fair sense of appreciation of what lay ahead of them in the shape of peril and adventure.

She was the most delightful person he had ever met, as well as being the most beautiful.  There was a sprightly, ever-growing air of self-reliance about her that charmed and reassured him.  She possessed the capacity for divining the sane and the ridiculous with splendid discrimination.  Moreover, she could jest and be serious with an impartial intelligence that gratified his vanity without in the least inspiring the suspicion that she was merely clever.  He became blissfully imbued with the idea that she had surprised herself by the discovery that he was really quite attractive.  In fact, he was quite sincerely pleased with himself—­for which he may be pardoned if one stops to think how resourceful a woman of tact may be if she is very, very pretty.